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Stanley Cup picks in 2021

February 1, 2021, 11:49 AM ET [17 Comments]
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In this edition of the hotstove, we share our Stanley Cup picks for the 2021 season.

Todd Cordell

I have the Colorado Avalanche beating the Toronto Maple Leafs en route to a Stanley Cup victory.

I absolutely love how Joe Sakic has built this team. The Avs are littered with top-end talent up front, of course, but they’ve done a great job of surrounding that talent with fantastic complimentary pieces (Brandon Saad, Joonas Donskoi, Andre Burakovsky, etc.).

Their blueline is the best in the NHL. It just is. They have star talent (Cale Makar), stout defenders (Devon Toews) and everybody can move the puck. When healthy, their third pairing is something like Bowen Byram and Ryan Graves. That is absurd; nobody can match that talent on P3.

Their goaltending is also a lot better than given credit for. Philipp Grubauer and Pavel Francouz gave the Avs a top-5 save percentage last season; they were just hurt in the playoffs and it cost them. I have zero concerns with that tandem.

Provided they can stay relatively healthy, I don’t think anybody can match Colorado’s mix of star power, depth, and speed.

As for the Maple Leafs (please spare me the ‘lol, gotta win a round first!!”), I have them making it all the way for a few reasons.

I love the top-end talent. I know they’ve underachieved in recent years but the underlying results suggested they probably deserved better. It’s not like they played like garbage; they largely generated chances and had little puck luck/were beaten by hot goaltenders. It happens.

I still believe in their stars and think a much weaker division to get through will help get them over the hump.

A lot of people poke holes in their defense – understandably so – but they do have the pieces to put together a decent unit (Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, T.J. Brodie and Justin Holl is a solid top-4) and I’d expect them to bring in another notable blueliner at the deadline once enough cap space accrues.

I understand most of you will be in the ‘see it before I believe it crowd’ and, honestly, fair enough. But this is my prediction and I think there is enough to justify it.

We’ll revisit in a few months.

Sean Maloughney

The Montreal Canadiens.

I think Montreal is the best team in the North Division and can match up with the top teams around the league. The top 9 Montreal has iced this season are a force at 5 on 5. Gallagher has always been an elite scorer at 5 on 5 and now he has support from the likes of Josh Anderson and Tyler Toffoli who has been on an absolute tear to start the year.

This is a team that can beat you in a number of ways. They have the depth to outscore most lines, they can play physical and they can cycle the puck strong.

On defense the Weber Chiarot pairing has been arguably the best shutdown pairing in the league with Petry being a strong producer and the young Alexander Romanov stepping up.

I see Montreal beating any team in the North in a best of 7 series and a hot Carey Price in addition to a skilled lineup can pave the way to a Cup.

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